Writer/Director/Author/Playwright/Blogger/Journalist Nora Ephron Dead At 71
via Gothamist:
Nora Ephron died yesterday at the age of 71. She had been suffering from cancer, and reports were circulating throughout the day yesterday that she was gravely ill.
Ephron had a long, storied career as a writer and a filmmaker. Gothamist does a great job of summing up the breadth of her career (though it's really just scratching the surface on everything she did). You can click over there for more (or just go on Twitter, which is filled with some very personal and beautiful eulogies):
After graduating from Wellesley in 1962 she worked briefly as an intern in JFK's White House before moving to New York to work at Newsweek. After the newspaper strike she got a job at the New York Post—where she broke the story that Bob Dylan had gotten married—while also writing for everyone from The Times to Esquire (her essays from which she collected into numerous books). In the 1970s, while married to Carl Bernstein (as in Woodward and Bernstein), Ephron took a stab at fixing up the script of All The Presidents Men. Though her version wasn't used, it got her going in the business. Her relationship with Bernstein, meanwhile, became fodder for her 1983 novel and 1986 film Heartburn.
Over the years, Ephron wrote a number of successful, zeitgeist-y movies (Silkwood, When Harry Met Sally, My Blue Heaven) and even directed quite a few, three of which truly stand out among the pantheon of romantic comedies (Sleepless in Seattle, You've Got Mail, Julie & Julia). She was nominated for three Oscars, for writing the original screenplays for Silkwood, When Harry Met Sally, and Sleepless in Seattle.
Even after her careers took off, it wasn't just movies. Ephron kept writing essays, books (like I Feel Bad About My Neck), and plays, including the wildly successful adaptation of Love, Loss, and What I Wore that she wrote with her sister Delia.
Her latest book, I Remember Nothing: And Other Reflections, came out last year.
Have a favorite work by Ephron? Share it in the comments.
News by Rob W. Hart
Rob W. Hart is the class director at LitReactor, as well as the associate publisher for MysteriousPress.com. He's the author of The Last Safe Place: A Zombie Novella, and his short stories have appeared in Shotgun Honey, Thuglit, Crime Factory, and Needle: A Magazine of Noir. He lives in New York City, and you can find his website at www.robwhart.com.
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